The Evolved Packet System (EPS) is the network architecture of the third generation partnership project (3GPP) wireless communication standard. During a communication session between a user equipment (UE) and a long term evolution (LTE) network, the UE interfaces with an evolved packet core (EPC), that is one of the main components of the EPS. The EPC is capable of processing various types of traffic (e.g., video, voice, text, etc.) at higher throughput and/or bandwidth than previous generation architectures (e.g., pre-3GPP networks). The various types of traffic are often associated with high bandwidth and/or data rates, which are often generated by high bandwidth applications (e.g., social networking, cloud computing, email, gaming, etc.). However, not all applications generate traffic associated with high bandwidth and/or data rates. Some low bandwidth applications (e.g., Instant Messaging (IM), Internet-based chat sessions, etc.) may generate low bandwidth traffic and/or be associated with long session times and/or long intervals of inactivity (e.g., a period of time between messages or packets).
Various network elements within the EPS use timers to keep track of a UE that is connected to the network. A network element may, for example, tear down a connection with a UE based on a timer. Application servers (e.g., that provide services to a UE through the EPS) may also use timers to manage sessions with UE. Currently, the network element timers and the application server timers are not synchronized. Thus, a network element can close a connection based on a local timer, while another network element or application server would still consider the connection valid based on other local timers.
Network elements within an EPS network also monitor other information associated with a UE connection. For example, data rates, quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees, packet loss, and other information about a current connection may be known to various different network elements. However, this information may not be known to application servers and/or other network elements on a real-time basis.